A Split-Second Flash
When I opened the door, two men were inside.
The one wearing glasses was likely the broker selling the military secrets.
He was cowering in the corner, drenched in sweat and looking utterly terrified.
Naturally, my gaze shifted to the man standing in the center of the room.
...He was strong.
Though he looked like a middle-aged man with a beer gut, he exuded an overwhelming presence.
He stood with his weight shifted back and his hands held out in front of him, as if he had been waiting for me.
I pointed my gun at him and spoke.
"Hand over the USB."
"I have no idea what you are talking about. I was merely being entertained by a business partner," the pot-bellied, middle-aged man said.
It was a blatant lie.
More than anything, the man cowering in the corner had instinctively clutched his pocket.
There was no need to waste time.
I pulled the trigger on the middle-aged man.
Bang!
He dodged it?!
"It's no big deal. Even I can dodge from this distance."
But you had enhancement surgery, Mister! That guy is just a normal human!
CC focused on the fact that he had dodged, but that wasn't the real issue.
What truly mattered was that his dodging motion was almost imperceptible.
As if predicting the bullet's path, the middle-aged man slipped out of its trajectory with the absolute minimum amount of movement.
I had seen movies back in the military featuring martial arts masters who could dodge bullets, but...
The middle-aged man spoke.
"Guns won't work."
In that case, it was close-quarters combat.
I lowered my stance and closed the distance rapidly, throwing a right punch infused with the power of Strong Arm straight at his solar plexus.
"Hmph!"
Crash!
My fist shattered the wooden table, scattering plates and side dishes in every direction.
Splinters from the table dug into my fist and hand, drawing blood.
Why did a punch clearly aimed at his solar plexus hit the table?
There was no time to question it.
"Hachachachacha!"
The man's fist flew toward me.
I hastily executed a Roll for its brief window of invincibility, but I couldn't avoid the first strike.
"...Ho, it seems you have neglected your physical training despite your skill? To think you would falter from just a single blow," the middle-aged man said, resetting his stance.
Though I had only taken one hit, a deep, throbbing pain lingered in my chest.
The fragile health of the goblin avatar was part of the problem, but the man's fist was no ordinary fist either.
Most of all, there was that bizarre technique he used to deflect my attack.
It felt as if the trajectory of my force had been bent, guided along a circular path.
CC sent a message.
It's Tai Chi.
"Tai Chi?"
"Hmm, so you recognized it?"
The middle-aged man replied, mistaking my response to CC as a comment directed at him.
It's a traditional Chinese martial art. It uses soft, slow movements, but its core philosophy revolves around the concept of deflecting or absorbing an opponent's force and using it to counterattack.
"So he's a counter-specialist."
"You seem to possess monstrous strength for your size," the middle-aged man said. "But it is meaningless before me. No matter how strong the force, I can simply redirect it. Or, perhaps, turn it back against you."
The middle-aged man drew a large circle with his arms and adjusted his stance.
His center of gravity shifted forward compared to before.
That meant he was going on the offensive.
I braced myself and waited for him to close in.
"Hah!"
The middle-aged man kicked a plate lying on the floor.
It flew straight at my face, and batting it away cost me my window to counterattack.
"Tch!"
Roll.
"Hah! Chah! Tahat!"
The man launched a rapid succession of strikes.
His circular hand movements transitioned into attacks in an instant, making his timing incredibly difficult to read.
I gave up trying to track him with my eyes and threw myself into another Roll, letting the survival instincts screaming down my spine guide my body.
I pulled the trigger just as his combo ended, but he dodged the bullet effortlessly.
"Ho... To think you could dodge all of that... Impressive..."
"Huff... Huff..."
Mister, are you okay? Your heart rate is off the charts...
I was not okay.
If I had focused solely on dodging from the start, I could have easily avoided his attacks.
The problem was my right hand.
The goblin's Roll animation required planting the right hand on the ground.
Every time I rolled, the pain in my already fractured right hand flared up.
On top of that, the lingering ache in my chest from his first blow refused to fade.
"How is that guy so strong? Is he an AI?"
I thought of the bearded man who had been buffed by the raccoon's power.
I don't see a processing core, so he isn't receiving direct AI support. He's just a regular resident of the Internet.
A regular person could be this strong?
The Internet was a vast place indeed.
I fired a rapid succession of shots at him.
Bang! Bang-bang!
I aimed where I predicted he would dodge, but he slipped past every single bullet.
"Didn't I say it was useless? A Tokarev holds eight rounds... You have three left, yes? The moment you run out of bullets will be your end."
He was right.
Currently, he was keeping just enough distance to anticipate the pistol's firing angle, refraining from rashly closing in.
If I ran out of ammo and he no longer had to worry about dodging gunfire, he would immediately go on a full offensive.
The man's arms drew another circle.
That motion.
That circular preparation was what threw off my timing.
I couldn't dodge it if I tried to track it with my eyes.
That rotation is tricking your eyes, Mister. Try fighting without looking at him if you can.
Easier said than done.
No, wait.
Fighting without looking?
"...It's worth a shot."
I raised my gun high.
Bang!
The bullet shattered the fluorescent light on the ceiling, plunging the room into dimness.
"What are you—?"
Bang!
I shot the monitor in the center of the room.
The LCD screen shattered, and absolute darkness swallowed the room.
"...I see," the middle-aged man muttered, silencing his presence.
I, too, steadied my breathing and suppressed my presence as much as possible.
If I couldn't dodge by looking, I would put him under the exact same constraint.
...
...
...
...
I timed it.
Bang!
A single shot fired at the floor.
The muzzle flash from the gunshot cast a split-second illumination, and in that brief moment, we measured the distance between us.
Creeeak...
The door to the hallway swung open, and the corridor light spilled into the room.
The middle-aged man was slumped on the floor, blood spurting from his neck.
Beside him lay the goblin dagger I had thrown.
"To use the final shot as a light... Brilliant..."
Leaving only those words, the middle-aged man collapsed.
What happened? How did you win?
There had been two tricks.
First, using the final bullet as a light source.
Second, keeping the dagger hidden until the very end.
The moment I used the Tokarev's last shot just for light, the middle-aged man's guard against a ranged attack would have dropped.
He probably expected me to throw the pistol at most.
But I had a dagger.
The instant the muzzle flash revealed our positions, I threw the hidden dagger at him.
The result spoke for itself.
I walked over to the bespectacled man trembling in the corner and held out my palm.
With shaking hands, he handed me the USB drive.
"I-I was... I was blackmailed..."
Target retrieved. Let's get out of here!
"Wait," I said, keeping my hand extended.
"Car keys."
As I stepped out into the hallway, the woman in the red dress was shivering in fear.
I walked past her and headed up the stairs.
"Hey, you son of a bitch! Give me back my clothes!"
The man in the black suit who had been guarding the entrance had apparently regained consciousness, as he was now stomping down the stairs.
Thwack!
He went down with a single punch packed with the power of Strong Arm.
My right hand was a complete mess now because of it, though.
Mister, aren't you being a bit too reckless with your avatar?
"I can fix it later."
A damaged avatar could be repaired.
Even Kang Yeolchan, who had lost his limbs, was perfectly fine the next time I saw him.
I walked out of the Royal Canin and pressed the button on the car keys I had swiped from the glasses guy.
Beep-beep.
A car parked nearby flashed its lights.
Inside the Sprout Guild office, Yoo Hyeyeon was wearing glasses, filling out some paperwork.
It was a member card—a sort of personal ledger—that she created whenever a new guild member joined.
Sitting on the sofa, Kang Yeolchan asked, "Mom, what's the occasion? You're filling out the member card even before Hyeong-nim gets back."
"Hmm? What do I usually do?"
"Usually, you never fill them out until they return safely."
"...I don't think he's going to fail."
"Right? Hyeong-nim will definitely succeed."
The mission Yoo Hyeyeon had assigned to Yoon Juhyuk was a rite of passage that every Player had to go through.
She, Kang Yeolchan, and most of the currently active Players had undertaken this mission, and it was because they succeeded that they remained Players today.
In the Internet, there were mysterious spaces where, if you arrived via a specific route, the exact same event would occur at the exact same time.
Players called these spaces, where fixed events repeated, "Event Zones."
The place Yoon Juhyuk had gone was one of these Event Zones.
If you transferred subways in a specific way and arrived at Gangnam Station, the time would always lock to May 31st at 8:08 PM.
Shortly after, an illicit transaction of military secrets would take place in a bar called Royal Canin.
Because its access route was the first to be discovered, it was also the most heavily researched event.
How many thugs there were, what their individual traits were, who the Chinese buyer was, and what needed to be done to steal the secrets.
Thus, this mission became a rite of passage for rookie Players—a testing ground for veteran Players to gauge a rookie's skills and temperament.
The key evaluation criteria were as follows:
First, did they follow instructions?
If they didn't follow the designated route, they would never arrive at the Royal Canin at 8:18 PM on May 31st. The date would change, or the time would shift.
Usually, Players who failed to even arrive had their licenses revoked immediately. If someone couldn't follow a simple set of directions for a route, there was no way they could be trusted to follow Maetan's orders when things went south.
Second, how did they infiltrate?
Even if they followed the route perfectly and arrived, a room salon was a space with a unique culture that didn't exist in Intra-Maetan. There was a dress code, and there were thugs guarding the entrance.
The Player had to find their own way—whether by dressing up and walking in confidently, sneaking in through the ceiling tiles, or waiting until the transaction was over to target the buyer outside.
It was a test of their adaptability and how well they could play by the rules of the Internet.
Third and last, how did they secure the USB?
The Chinese man purchasing the military secrets was a master of Tai Chi.
He was strong enough to throw even Yoo Hyeyeon off guard when she first fought him.
No matter how skilled a combat-oriented Player was, they were bound to lose if the matchup was bad.
How would they get the USB from such an opponent? Negotiation? Blackmail? Pickpocketing?
There were many ways to obtain the USB without fighting the Chinese man. Many Players had retrieved the USB through various clever methods. On the other hand, those who had fought and defeated him to take it could be counted on one hand—and Yoo Hyeyeon was one of them.
'But the most important thing... is not getting caught by F.'
Even if they cleared all the conditions above, the greatest danger was avoiding detection by F.
If they caused a loud scene or fought in a crowded area, someone in the virtual world would call the police, and they would arrive within five minutes.
Once the police were involved, it was practically over. If the situation escalated, it wouldn't be long before F itself intervened directly.
'Well, as long as he doesn't do something crazy like fire a gun, they shouldn't deploy.'
Yoo Hyeyeon brushed her worries aside and began planning Yoon Juhyuk's welcoming party.
Just then, the voice of a news anchor drifted from the TV Kang Yeolchan had turned on.
"We have breaking news. A gang war has erupted at a bar near Gangnam Station. While some suspects have been arrested at the scene, others are reportedly fleeing in a vehicle. We have obtained footage submitted by a citizen."
In the middle of a four-lane road in Gangnam, a white sedan was engaged in a high-speed car chase, with a fleet of police cars hot on its tail.